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Paper, xylography. 290õ260 (130õ120) . RSL.
This is one of Kupreyanov’s earliest works. The turn to folk art popular prints and Russian tradition of icon painting is quite obvious here. Woodcut is a separate chapter in the biography of the artist. In his autobiography he wrote: "In my university years, I studied drawing rigorously and systematically. But neither drawings nor paintings made by my hands looked like art to me. I was hoping that this would change when I "graduated". However, time went by, and I "graduated", and there were no art in my work. It was a dangerous period, and maybe I would have given up if I hadn’t tried engraving. This made me feel like an artist right away. The lack of technical skills didn’t hinder, but helped: black color, to which I could not give any meaningful "values”, turned out to have its own figurative values. After that I felt that art and skill came naturally to me”.
//Kupreyanov N.N. Literary and Artistic Heritage. Moscow, 1973 P.81.//
